


For Whatever Comes Next

by vargrimar



Series: The Chambers and the Valves [15]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Autistic Sherlock Holmes, Banter, Canon Compliant, Dancing, Domestic Fluff, Episode: s04e01 The Six Thatchers, Fluff, Jealousy, Light Angst, M/M, Missing Scene, Pining, Pre-Relationship, Season/Series 04, and lectures her on music taste, in which sherlock dances with his very small goddaughter, rosie is just having a nice time looking at all the neat stuff in the sitting room
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2020-02-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:49:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22916515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vargrimar/pseuds/vargrimar
Summary: And it’s terrible, he thinks, that he still feels this way. That after all this time, he still feels this way, still,still, and he cannot seem to make it stop.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Series: The Chambers and the Valves [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1640680
Comments: 5
Kudos: 60





	For Whatever Comes Next

**Author's Note:**

> ( when everything feels heavy  
> I’ve learned to travel light
> 
> but I want to be here  
> truly be here  
> to watch the ones that I love bloom. . . )

He really mustn’t take so much pleasure in domesticity.

At a quarter past eight, John and Rosie had arrived on the kerb outside Baker Street, weighed down by, in Sherlock’s opinion, far too many bags. Sherlock had stepped down to help carry them in, continuing to marvel at the sheer absurdity of a person who is sized roughly ten percent that of an adult requiring the equivalent of an entire bloody bedroom stuffed into three overlarge bags.

After said three overlarge bags had been deposited onto the sitting room sofa (and John’s much smaller two onto the table), Mrs Hudson had brought up tea and an early morning breakfast, where John had poured milk into the teacups and munched on jam-glossed toast and crispy rashers whilst Rosie made vague gurgles of interest, and Sherlock had, to his own surprise, ate his veggie-stuffed omelette with something rather like relish.

Now, nearly an hour later, he sits by the hearth with his laptop resting over his tangled legs, watching Mary’s dot on-screen as it continues to blip across North Africa. Rosie sits in her booster across from him in John’s armchair, her rattle and stuffed animals arced before her like an offering to the gods, and he glances up every minute or so to ensure she hasn’t somehow escaped her compact plastic chair-prison (because she is John’s daughter, after all). When he does, the sight of her in her tiny yellow jumper makes him feel like something down below his clavicle has become tight, waterlogged, encumbered with something he would rather not inspect.

In his periphery, John rummages through their combined luggage splayed upon the sitting room table. He rearranges clothes and electronics and pokes through side-pockets with his hair freshly combed and smelling of the mellow spice that marks his preferred cologne. A mild haste orchestrates his movements; swiftness of hand, lightness of feet. They are well ahead of schedule, but John likes to be ready, likes to be prepared ( _shirts folded_ , _ready to pack_ ), so Sherlock lets him do as he likes because a John Watson in his element is a John Watson of interest, however mundane the task.

And in the midst of this, in the tranquil centre of all this sitting and sorting and existing, Sherlock finds there is no place he’d rather be.

London calls to him in its usual language of traffic and rainfall. The trip ahead speaks of sands and warmer climes. His inbox murmurs in triple digits. He knows he should be restless for their promises, drawn by consonants and vowels and sans-serif lettering like a sprout to sunlight, and yet he isn’t. He isn’t restless, impatient, or irritated. He isn’t beset by any great drive for action. There is quiet and there is comfort and there are two people whose company he enjoys, and that is all this small moment requires.

It’s domesticity. And it is a bit boring, yes, ennui and tedium and all that, but it’s _good_ and it’s—well. It’s also home.

(Home: the place where John is. Always, always where John is. Whether that is 221B Baker Street or a flat in the suburbs or a skybound altitude in the stratosphere or an open ravine in the ocean floor, home will always be where John is.)

“Right. Well, I think that’s everything.”

Sherlock glances up from the screen. “Passports?”

“Right here.” John produces two maroon booklets and an envelope from Sherlock’s black suitcase. “Yours and mine. Also got the boarding passes. Mycroft sent them along.”

Sherlock resists the urge to roll his eyes. “Of course he did. Luggage?”

“Packed and ready to go. Got all the essentials. Few days’ worth, anyway. Should be enough to go on. Rosie’s stuff from round here’s put away, too, so all we need to do is carry it down.”

“Your gun?”

“Yep, got it. In the small one there with the chargers. That’ll have to be checked.”

Affection is a warm, buttery feeling in his chest. “Good.”

John straightens himself and gives his bad shoulder a roll. “You know, in times like these, I’m almost a little glad your brother’s in with the government. Flying with an illegal firearm would be rather difficult otherwise.”

“Ugh, don’t let him hear you say that. I really don’t want to deal with his smug…” Sherlock waves a hand, nose crinkled. “Everything.”

“Ha, God forbid,” says John. “I already have to deal with your smug everything. I don’t think I could handle another. One’s bad enough, thanks.”

Sherlock casts John a withering look over his laptop screen.

“What? Don’t you act like it isn’t. The both of you can be ridiculously smug. Really, I’d think it was in your DNA if your parents weren’t so bloody normal.”

Rosie mumbles something that sounds an awful lot like agreement.

“Ah, see there? I’m not the only one who thinks so. We’ve got you outnumbered.” John paths over to his chair and strokes his fingers through his daughter’s sandy hair. “Good girl, Rosie. Very good girl. Yeah, you see right through his stroppy glares, don’t you? You know he can be a ridiculously smug git when he wants to be.”

“When’s the flight again?” Sherlock asks, pointedly ignoring all commentary as he returns his attention to Mary’s still-moving dot.

“Half eleven out of Heathrow,” says John. He bends down and returns a wayward stuffed animal to Rosie’s tray. “Probably ought to get going soon. It’s bound to be busy and traffic’s not like to get any better. We’re getting a cab, yeah?”

Sherlock hums in the affirmative. “Mycroft offered a car. I told him I’d rather walk.”

“Did you? Well, if you’re snubbing free rides, you’re paying the fare. Just because you like being all dramatic doesn’t mean I like paying each time you whirl out of the car.” John pauses, ostensibly to level him with some disapproving stare. “Seriously. I mean that, Sherlock. I’ve been stuck with the last three. Would be nice if you got one every now and again.”

Sherlock does not respond. Instead, he taps his fingers by the trackpad and continues to watch Mary’s GPS coordinates slowly decrement, her red circle coasting just along the outskirts of Errachidia. The shift in speed from before suggests a land vehicle rather than aeroplane; she’d changed transportation at approximately four o’clock yesterday morning. If his conjecture is correct, she will choose a place to rest once she is further from the city, which will provide them with a window of moderate leeway.

When John realises there will be no forthcoming reply, he steps over and leans down to look at the screen. His hand comes to rest on the back of Sherlock’s chair.

“Still en route?” he asks.

“Yes. To Marrakesh.” Sherlock nods at the map spread across the length of the screen, both Mary’s path and his own predictions dotted over Morocco’s bird’s-eye landscape. “It will be a while yet before she reaches it, but she is certainly going to Marrakesh. Look here—the path she took across Algeria. She flew in from Iran yesterday morning judging by speed and the area’s recent flight patterns, but now her movement’s changed; she’s got a car or a motorbike and she’s crossed the border with it. Her previous destinations have alternated between dense cities and remote villages, but if we look at how she’s executed her prior routes, the trajectory matches. Marrakesh. We’ll arrive with plenty of time to spare.”

“Bloody Marrakesh. Jesus.” John traces his free fingers round his mouth. “Well, suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised. She’s been to a dozen other countries and God only knows how many cities.”

“Forty-seven cities,” he says.

“Calling yourself God, then, are you?”

“Hardly. I prefer genius. Much more modest. And realistic.” Sherlock smirks up at him. “Are you implying I’m some omnipotent deity?”

“Oh, God, no. As absolutely terrifying as the idea of an omnipotent Sherlock Holmes is, I think that’s more Mycroft’s area. Leaving bugs everywhere, abusing CCTV and all that. A bee could sneeze in Brixton and he’d know about it.” John offers a smirk of his own. “Still, genius as you are, you can’t take credit for this one. You’d never even know it was forty-seven cities if it wasn’t for me.”

“Ah, yes. It does so help when you’re on a clever streak.”

“I do get those on occasion.”

“Mm, and with increasing frequence.”

“Is that a compliment I’m hearing?”

“Positive reinforcement, John. If you receive a desirable stimulus after a certain behaviour, that behaviour is more likely to be repeated.”

John narrows his eyes. “That’s operant conditioning.”

“It is, indeed. Well done.”

Sherlock unfolds his legs and allows them to stretch, crossed ankles coming to rest by another one of Rosie’s discarded toys on the carpet. Rosie herself seems unperturbed at the shrinking number of stuffed animals on her tray.

“Right,” he says. “So, with the assumption of a punctual flight, we’ll be in Marrakech by early evening. That will give us time to settle in and search for our contact before Mary arrives tomorrow afternoon. Mycroft’s already done most of the legwork, or as much as he’s actually capable of doing whilst sitting comfortably in his office, so all that’s left is the literal part of the legwork. Once we meet up with our contact in the souks, we’ll be ready and waiting. Should be an interesting confrontation.” Sherlock tips up his chin to look at John. “Do you think she’ll be pleased to see us?”

Something in John’s demeanour undergoes a rapid shift. Sherlock takes note of the flex in his jaw, the smile that edges at the cusp of anger, the way his gaze skitters off to the far end of the sitting room where the bullet holes pock the wallpaper. John withdraws his outstretched hand in a controlled movement, and when it meets his side, it winds into a tightened fist.

“I don’t know,” he says, and it’s—guarded, Sherlock thinks, and a little pained. And that’s normal for the situation, he assumes; it must be. Mary is John’s wife. “But it doesn’t really matter if she is, now, does it? We’re coming whether she’ll be pleased to see us or not. She doesn’t get to keep doing this.”

“No. No, she doesn’t,” he agrees, rather wishing he’d kept his mouth shut.

A tense moment crawls by. Traffic’s undertones and Rosie’s unintelligible chatter and Sherlock’s still tapping fingers swell to flood in the conversation’s missing spaces.

“Right.” An audible swallow. Fists clench and unclench. Another flex of his jaw. “Okay. Well, uh, let me pop Rosie’s things down to Missus H. Best do it now than on our way out. Less stuff to worry about. Won’t be a minute.”

With that, John strides across the room and grabs Rosie’s three bags of supplies off the sofa. His footsteps are heavy as he exits the sitting room and heads down the staircase to 221A, and not because of the added weight. There is force behind them, Sherlock thinks; there is ire and rancour lining the arches, the soles, tangible and emphatic.

A second or two after the downstairs door snicks shut, Rosie makes an anguished cry.

Sherlock’s focus snaps back to her. “Hm? Oh. It’s nothing you should concern yourself with. He just sort of… does that sometimes. It’s a very common thing. Habit, really. You get used to it.”

Such reassurances don’t seem to help. Rosie, now appearing very distressed at the fact that her father has suddenly gone missing (or perhaps that change has just happened and now there is one less person present; he’s not quite sure which), continues to let her distress be known and at an increasing volume.

The noise grates at his eardrums in a sharp sort of throb, the sort that would soon scrape into the start of a too-much headache, but Sherlock gets up, folds his laptop shut, and sets it on the floor by his chair. He then stoops to a kneel in front of Rosie and unbuckles her from her booster. After returning another errant toy to its place on her tray, he gently ( _gently_ , as John once demonstrated) slips his hands beneath her arms and lifts her up, situating her warm little body into the bend of his left arm.

“Shh,” he murmurs into her tawny blond hair, breathing in the scent of soap and youth and baby powder. “Daddy will be back in a moment. He wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye, I promise you. I know the concept of object permanence hasn’t fully formed with you just yet, even if your developmental progress does surpass that of your peers, but you must believe me when I tell you that he will return. John is good like that.”

Rosie does not appear entirely convinced. She continues to wail, her face crumpled with displeasure and reddened by the effort. One of her small hands has curled into his suit jacket whilst the other becomes a frustrated fist by her chubby cheek, and Sherlock hefts her further up in the crook of his arm so that he might engage her face to face. Her brilliant blue eyes (John’s blue eyes) brim with tears, and a tight pang makes its presence known by Sherlock’s lungs.

The realisation properly crashes in with little ceremony: this tiny human is his goddaughter.

Of course, the actual event had happened months ago, but it hadn’t really been something he’d dwelled upon. Baptisms are religious rituals and neither John nor Mary are particularly religious in any meaningful sense, which means it had been done out of tradition rather than spiritual obligation. At the time, he’d been far more focussed on his cases and the religious element of the affair rather than the implications being named ‘godfather’ would bring.

Implications which mean, more or less, that Sherlock is to help to raise Rosie. (Well, excluding all the pious accoutrements.)

And really, now that he thinks about it, is that not what he’s done? From a distance, yes, for the most part, but he has taken a more present role ever since Mary had absconded from London. All of Rosie’s godparents have, in fact. Molly has pitched in sans complaints and Mrs Hudson has accepted the youngest Watson with her usual bubbly mien. Sherlock has stepped up to do his part as well, and with far less grousing than what he’s sure John has come to expect.

Sherlock holds Rosie’s gaze, tears and all, and begins to sway in place. Back and forth, back and forth, he does a half twist and shifts his weight from one foot to the other. It is what feels natural, what feels right: repetitive rhythms, soothing motion, satisfying the body’s need for comfort through physical stimulus.

He knows it very well.

“Now, you listen to me,” he says, his voice soft and low. “I know this isn’t an ideal situation for you, but it must be done. You want your mummy back, don’t you?”

Rosie sniffles between cries. It’s as good as a nod.

“Right. Of course you do. And if we’re to get your mummy back, Daddy and I have a bit of travelling to do. Not to worry; it’s just to Morocco. Rather short flight, all things considered. Practically a holiday compared to Eastern Europe.”

This does not seem to placate Rosie. She squirms in his arm, voicing her protest in a volume that is none too subtle.

“Yes, yes, I suppose there are better holiday destinations,” he agrees, “but the souks really are quite fascinating and we’ll be meeting your mother there, so Morocco it is. There will be a plane that’ll take us right to her, so we won’t be gone for long. Four days at the very most. Between the two of us, we’ll bring her home, and then you can spend all your time telling her in no uncertain terms exactly how unhappy you are with her decision. I can assure you that there is nothing quite like proper retribution. You’ll come to enjoy it, I think.”

In the midst of his rocking, Sherlock takes a glance toward the sitting room’s open doorway. No footsteps, no voices, no commotion in the stairwell—indication that John hasn’t left Mrs Hudson’s yet. Knowing her, she’s probably wrangled him into another cup of tea that has been thinly disguised as a chance for John to go over Rosie’s routines for the hundredth time. It’s just as well, really.

Rosie fusses again, fidgeting as Sherlock turns his attention back to her. Whatever he can do to mollify her before John returns will be for the best. He’s sure the last thing John needs on his mind is his daughter being upset and uncomfortable before their flight. The rocking seems to have helped, but Rosie continues to make displeased noises.

“I’m afraid I’ve deleted most childhood lullabies,” he says, lowering her against his chest, “but I do know of many classical compositions that might work as a substitute. How do we feel about Chopin, hm? Your father seemed to like his nocturnes well enough. I’ve always found them calming. One hundred and eight in C minor, perhaps? Or would you rather hear thirty-seven in G minor?”

If Rosie has a preference, she doesn’t seem keen on letting him know one way or the other. She proceeds to lament the world’s injustices through more long-winded whimpers, one fist still grasping at the arm of his jacket.

“Neither? Hm. No, no, you’re right. Others might be more appropriate. Let me think.” Sherlock rocks from side to side another moment more, and then says, “Ah, what about his nocturne in C-sharp minor? Noted as number forty-nine, if I recall. It’s playful in some areas, more sombre in others. A pleasure to the ear. Might be good.”

The noise Rosie offers is less distressed-sounding than the others. Sherlock chooses to interpret this in the affirmative.

“Excellent choice, Watson,” he says. “Even with your limited exposure, you are developing quite the refined taste. You ought to persuade Daddy to let you listen to classical composers more often. Paganini in particular might capture your interest; he’s a favourite of mine. Tell John to start with his _Caprices_. I know your attention span isn’t the longest—not at your age, can’t be helped—but they should be short enough to keep it for a while. Maybe your dad will let me play them for you the next time you come round for a visit, hm? Best to introduce you early.”

With an attentive carefulness, Sherlock takes the tiny hand that is not preoccupied with his suit between his thumb and forefinger and nudges it open upon his fingerprint. He watches her as she focusses on the sudden sensation of touch, her eyes locking onto the enormous disparity between her hand and his.

“Do keep in mind that this is a bit unorthodox,” says Sherlock. “Normally there would be proper music for this sort of dance, but I can’t play one-handed and Missus Hudson has deliberately misplaced my phone dock ever since the opera incident, so we’ll have to make do. All right? Very good. Right, then. Hold tight. Yes, like that. Here we go.”

Continuing his back-and-forth movements, Sherlock eases into the gradual steps of a gliding waltz. Once he is satisfied with Rosie’s acclimation, he performs a graceful turn to mimic Rosie’s part in the movement, and then he begins to hum.

It’s a placid and pleasant melody, one he knows from many a long midnight spent singing its bars upon the strings of his violin. It reminds him not of John’s old nightmares, but of the comforting quiet that would follow some time after. Muscle memory itches in the calluses caught amongst his fingertips—vibrato, it recalls; tremble, tremble, tremble, slide—and he adjusts Rosie in his left arm to assuage the phantom currents.

As Sherlock drifts from step to step, he lets his voice steep in a lower register. He lilts from one note to the next, a deep thrum in his throat, keeping it soft and gentle for Rosie’s sensitive ears. The unhurried measure in which he intones each note lets him conduct a more languorous waltz; he spins circles round the sitting room with a far laxer form than his usual fastidious approach would generally permit.

John would laugh, he thinks, a smile teasing in. After the strict lessons Sherlock had put him through, after all the curt corrections and wry remarks and stamped toes, John would take one look and undoubtedly laugh.

By the time he has hummed through half the nocturne, the synthesis of sound and motion appears to have done its part: Rosie’s sniffles taper off and her whines lessen into quiet. The flat fills with Sherlock’s muffled footfalls upon the carpet and the warm baritone of his voice like gathering raindrops in a crack in the pavement. The room’s ambiance grows gentler, muted, firmly ensconced within familiar walls. The continuous churr of traffic seems miles and miles beyond.

Now that she has calmed, Rosie appears more interested in current proceedings. Although she isn’t capable of her own box step or any of the intricate sways that a waltz incorporates, she does attempt movements of her own. She squeezes at Sherlock’s thumb with impossibly small fingers, tilts her blond head to take in the many wonderments of the sitting room, buries her face against the lapel of his suit jacket. Her voice bubbles beneath his in a soft, brook-like gabbling, and a wreath of delight twines into haphazard tangles behind his breastbone, entirely unbidden.

If it were possible to bottle a particular point in time, to shove its sights and sounds and smells into a crystal phial and stopper it shut, he would add this one to his ever-expanding trove. He’s already got an impressive number of cherished memories meticulously stored within his mind palace vaults; he collects and stockpiles them like glinting curios pilfered by corvidae, and he knows with complete and total certainty that dancing with his goddaughter would have no trouble finding its place amongst them.

Should circumstances permit, this one moment will be the first of many.

And truthfully, he hopes it is.

“Sherlock?”

Halting the routine mid-hum, Sherlock pivots on the ball of his foot to see John leaning against the sitting room’s threshold.

It’s casual, his posture, with his bad shoulder fitted up against the jamb. John’s features are warm, serene; soft crinkles adorn the corner of each eye, his mouth stretched in a languid smile. Something unmistakably fond imbues every slope, every line, every edge, and it accentuates just how aesthetically pleasing John is, how wonderful and attractive and _good_ he looks with his silver-tinged blond hair combed in its now-habitual sweep and his strong arms crossed over the navy-chequered fabric of his button-down that complements the deep, hazel-flecked blues of his eyes.

The ache in Sherlock’s chest comes careening back with a force that fairly winds him.

“She’s a rather good dancer,” he says, as the words pertaining to every other observation of note seem to have dissipated quite suddenly.

“Mm, so she is. Doesn’t get it from me, though. Not with my rubbish skills.” John’s eyes glitter with mischief. “Must be her tutor.”

With a flush warming his cheeks, Sherlock glances back down to Rosie. He lets go of her tiny hand and catches her curious gaze as he performs a little half-bow with her in tow. Her babble of glee during the movement does not go unnoticed.

“It has been a pleasure, Miss Watson,” he says in a most courteous tone, “but it appears your father has come to spirit you away. Shall we continue this another time?”

Rosie makes a nonsense noise and reaches out for him with questing fingers. Intrigued, he brings her closer only to have her hand grasp at his nose. She squeezes with the smallest amount of pressure, all that her still-developing muscles can apply, her pretty eyes growing wide with wonder.

Sherlock knows he couldn’t have stopped the smile even if he’d tried.

“Look there,” he says, and twists about so that John slides into her view. “Do you see? Daddy’s back, just as I said. Told you he wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye. All the fuss was for naught, hm? Yes, he did take a very long time, didn’t he? No, he’s just like that sometimes. It’s sort of a recurring thing. Let’s go tell him how displeased we are, shall we?”

“Oh, you’re displeased, are you? Is that what this is? Neither of you look particularly displeased to me. Quite the opposite. Not that I’m complaining, mind. This is honestly one of the better things I’ve walked in on.” John grins, incandescently handsome and bright.

Sherlock knows there is no fundamental difference between this John and the John of ten minutes ago, but the atmosphere has shifted into something lighter; he can sense it. The seriousness of the task ahead has been forgotten, much like the psychosomatic limp that had once pained John’s leg. Whatever grave thoughts had followed him to 221A appear to have been lost on the ascent. Left to their own devices, they now linger amongst the dust motes, floating arabesque through gilded sheets of sunshine, and John is better for it. Leaning against the entryway, John is gorgeous, brilliant, utterly radiant in his fondness.

In these tender seconds, John is not the troubled man with an ex-assassin for a wife.

And this is how things should always happen, Sherlock thinks. This is how everything ought to be. John should always look this soft, this contented. John should always have those mirthful little turns and lines sculpting his face. John should always use that amused tone where he tries not to laugh and fails, and in a good way. John should always come home ( _home!_ ) to this very sitting room to see Sherlock and his daughter dancing to Chopin or Vitali or Paganini or Brahms.

And it’s terrible, he thinks, that he still feels this way. That after all this time, he still feels this way, still, _still_ , and he cannot seem to make it stop.

Forcing it all back down into the cold, cramped corners where it never should have left, Sherlock meets John halfway across the carpet in a few short strides and relinquishes Rosie with the utmost care.

“Ah, here we are,” says John, and he scoops her up and into his arms. “Sorry for taking so long, darling. Did you have fun dancing with Sherlock? Certainly seemed so. Did he tell you your skills were awful, too?”

“Her skills were _not_ awful,” says Sherlock, pinning John with an offended glare. “They were perfectly normal for a six-month-old. A little advanced, in fact. She was very good and held onto my hand throughout the entire waltz. Can’t say the same of another Watson I’ve danced with in the past.”

John heaves a sigh. “You’re going to hold that over my head forever, aren’t you? You know it wasn’t on purpose. I lost my footing! There was a wrinkle in the carpet; my shoe caught the edge when we circled round, and—”

“And if you’d taken your shoes off to begin with like I’d suggested, it never would have happened.” He gives Rosie an indicative nod. “She doesn’t have that problem.”

“Yeah, well, it’s a bit easier for her, isn’t it? Her feet can’t touch the ground. Tripping’s a bit difficult when someone else has got you several feet up.” John looks back down at his daughter, adoration creasing his smile, and drops a kiss on her downy head. “That isn’t to say your dancing wasn’t lovely, Rosie. It was very lovely. Very lovely, indeed. You’re a natural. Himself over there might disagree, but—”

“No, no. She is.”

John blinks. “She is?”

“She is. Yes, she is. Of course she is.” Sherlock clears his throat. “Obviously.”

A heartbeat of silence descends upon the sitting room.

John’s gaze is neither sharp nor cutting nor does it hold Sherlock’s critical deductive edge, and yet it feels as though it could pare straight past the defences he has done so well to uphold. The bemused corner-smile is almost shy, like this is some kind of anomaly and its existence has John taken by surprise—like Sherlock complimenting his daughter really is such a strange and puzzling concept and he must turn it over a time or three to get it sorted—but it shouldn’t come as a surprise. It shouldn’t. Not after everything that’s happened.

( _I swear I will always be there. Always._ )

Really, it’s not a difficult leap. Sherlock cares for John, and because he cares for John (God, he cares for John so much that it has become a symptom, a condition, a bloody state of being), it only makes sense that he should also care for John’s daughter. Rosie is a part of John and John is a part of Sherlock; ergo, Rosie is also a part of Sherlock. It’s simple logic.

But that implies more, doesn’t it? He’s got a soft spot for Rosie, which means he’s also got a soft spot for John. One feeds the other ad infinitum; sentiment’s ravenous ouroboros.

“Did you hear that, Rosie?” John’s voice softens into a lilt as he addresses her, but his gaze remains on Sherlock. “Now that’s some very high praise, isn’t it? If Sherlock thinks you’re a natural, it must be true.”

The eye contact almost burns. Sherlock clasps his hands behind his back and looks out the window where it’s safe, where it isn’t John, where it’s okay to stare, where fleeting prickles won’t dig. He wills himself to be impassive because that taut, inexorable tangle of longing threatens and threatens and threatens to close his throat and suffuse his lungs, but he can’t quite get it right. The small smile tucked at the end of his mouth refuses to vanish.

Yes, he still feels this way. He still feels this way, still, _still_ , but it’s fine. He’s got John and he’s got Rosie (and he’s got Mary, too, even if she is in Morocco), and they are enough. The mutinous depths of him hunger for more (because they will always, always hunger for more), but this is what he is permitted, this is all he can have, this wonderful little facsimile of domesticity, and he knows he mustn’t take such pleasure in it, he knows, but—God, surely it can’t be so bad?

“Well, shall we go? Can’t say I’m in any hurry to sit in a flying metal tube for the next several hours, but I’d rather us be early. Makes things a lot easier.” John brushes past with Rosie in tow, stooping to a kneel as he begins to retrieve her menagerie of toys. “Give me a hand, will you? Honestly, I don’t know how she’s got so many of these bloody things. I swear I don’t even remember buying half of them. It’s like you leave the room and suddenly two more pop into existence.”

Sherlock lets his eyes roam the glass, the curtains, the trim. He squeezes his hands together and pools his focus into the pressure, the physicality, his middle and index fingers tapping soft heartbeats at the edge of his palm; something, anything to entrap his attention beyond alluvion of _want_ that crushes back behind his ribs.

No, he thinks. No, it probably can be that bad. It definitely can be that bad.

But that isn’t going to stop him from enjoying it while it lasts.

“I’ll carry that,” he says, and reaches for Rosie’s booster.


End file.
